DANIEL BROCKMAN

Latest Articles

Still in uniform The history of popular music is littered with musical questioning, from "Why must I be a teenager in love?" to "Who put the bomp in the bomp buh-bomp buh-bomp?" But when pop turned to rock and artists began to attempt to wield their popular might in order to do right, that inquisitiveness often turned into telling people what to do and think.

Going Gaga The British-born Natalia acted in BBC television and radio comedies (starting at age nine) before morphing into a musical career that has seen her adopt the stage name Natalia Kills — which describes her lethal combination of dark themes and anthemic synthpop.

Dancing on her own There are some pop stars for whom every record requires a reinvention of their persona. But what if your persona is just yourself, and you've spent your career rejecting the urge to create controversy to make people pay attention to you? For pop chanteuse Robin Carlsson, a/k/a Robyn, the R-word itself causes consternation.

Making the cut By the time I arrive at their Lowell recording studio to talk to the teenage pop/R&B dynamos Varsity Girls, it's almost 10 pm, and I'm expecting to encounter an exhausted group of studio-tanned kids burned out after a full day of singing and more singing.

The Flamingo kid Rock stars are often seen, culturally, as wolves in sheeps' clothing, seducing and subverting once they have gotten their fangs into the hearts of music listeners, using their Pied Piper powers of coercion to ensnare innocent ears and radicalize minds with their unholy aims.

Roc-A-Fella Records (2010) Amid the zapping prog-lift of the vaguely Nietzschean "Power," the lead single from his fifth album and magnum opus, Kanye tosses off the casual self-platitude "Every superhero needs his theme music."

Def Jam (2010) Let's be honest here: the average human doesn't care about RiRi's need to express her artistic personality through music and would be more psyched if it were just 11 versions of "Don't Stop the Music."